Editorial
This article first appeared in Modern English Teacher Volume 12/4 October 2003
Drilling can be fun!
Simon Mumford, Turkey
Simon Mumford teaches EAP at Izmir University of Economics, Turkey. He has written on using stories, visuals, drilling, reading aloud, and is especially interested in the creative teaching of grammar. E-mail: simon.mumford@ieu.edu.tr
Menu
Conducting drills
Delayed drills
Umbrella drills
Throwing words around
Pass around drills
Opinion drills
Drilling ‘can’ with a can
First letter drills
Tennis ball drills
Countdown
Conclusion
Drilling is unpopular with some teachers because it implies an authoritarian classroom and is linked to a mechanical view of language learning. At worst, students repeat words they do not really understand in a flat monotone. However, with a bit of imagination drilling can be fun and motivating. Drills can be used to practice rhythm and intonation, to learn vocabulary and grammar structures, and can be combined with gestures, realia and intonation in amusing and imaginative ways. Many students enjoy and expect drills. Here are some ideas to make repetition and drilling more enjoyable and creative.
You are a conductor! Write the sentence you want to drill on the board. Say the sentence and mark the stresses. Get the class to practise the sentence until they can remember it. Now stand at the back of the class, facing the board and ask the students to turn so they are facing you. Take a ruler and ‘conduct’ the drill, that is, drill the sentence and beat the stressed syllables with your ruler. Break the sentence up into parts, practise them and then put the whole sentence together. Do it several times, increasing the speed each time. The class should be looking at you, not the sentence on the board, which they should be able to remember. Note: It is a good idea to practise beating the stresses by yourself first!
Instead of getting students to repeat straight away, let them wait after hearing the words. The idea is that the longer they hold the words in their head, the more likely they are to remember in the long term. If you like, tell them to close their eyes and try to visualise the words while they are waiting. Start with a ten second delay then gradually increase the wait time to make it more difficult.
Here’s a fun activity for a rainy day! Count the spokes on your umbrella and write a sentence containing the same number of words. Write each word in large letters on a piece of paper and stick each word of the sentence on the end of one of the umbrella spokes in the correct order. (Note: you have to tape it firmly to the metal not the cloth). Stand in front of your class and rotate the open umbrella, and tell students to say each word as it comes round. Do this slowly a few times and let them say the sentence. Then gradually speed up until they are saying it quickly. If students have brought their own umbrellas they can make their own sentences.
This is a vocabulary drill with a difference. Write the words you want students to remember, about 7 or 8, on large pieces of paper. Spread them out on a table. Hold up one word, say it and get students to repeat and then put the paper back in its place. Do it several times with each word. Now they should be able to remember where each word is on the table, so point to each piece of paper to elicit the word. Next, screw each one into a ball and point again. Then take three balls and put them at the front of the table. Ask the class which word each ball represents. Tell them to watch carefully and quickly move them around and ask them again. Finally throw a ball to one of the students, saying the word it represents. Do the same with all the balls. Get them to throw the balls to each other, again saying the words at the same time.
This will help students to learn 10 or 12 ‘concrete nouns’. For this you need picture cards of the words you are going to drill. First, write the list of words on the board, and practise them. Don’t explain the meanings at this stage. Now ask the students to sit in a circle. Pass the first picture to one student and say the word at the same time. He should pass it to the next student also repeating the word, who listens, repeats and passes again and so on. When the card has been passed a few times, do the same with the next card. Continue until all the cards are circulating. Encourage the students to pass the cards faster and faster until they are confident with the words.
Note: Make sure the pictures are passed around in the same order as you drilled them. If you
have a large class you may need several packs of picture cards. There should be fewer cards than students in each circle.
Tell the students that you are going to give them a statement that you want them to consider, as if they have heard it for the first time, for example ‘There’s life on Mars’. They should repeat the statement five times. The first four times they should say it as if considering the statement with appropriate thoughtful intonation (and chin stroking!). The fifth time they should say it with intonation and gestures that shows their attitude eg, they accept or reject it. As well as being a fun way to do repetition, you get to see students’ reactions to various statements. With more advanced students, try concepts like ‘small is beautiful, it’s better to be beautiful than good, learning English is a waste of time, it’s better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable, youth is wasted on the young, smoking should be banned’. This could lead on to debates about these subjects.
You need two empty drink cans. Explain to the students that the word ‘can’ has the same sound and spelling as the modal verb ‘can’. Prepare some sentences with the modal ‘can’ which you are going to drill eg ‘I can see you.’ ‘Can you tell me the time?’ ‘I can play tennis, can you?’ ‘Can you help me?’ As you say each word make a gesture, for example: ‘Can you see me’= Can (hold up the empty can) you (point to the class) see (point to your eye) me (point to yourself). Say the words as you gesture, and get the class to say it after you.
When the students have got the idea you can drill with gesture only, and speed up so they say the sentences more fluently. Then you can introduce the second can. Crush it and explain that it represents the ‘reduced’ or weak form of ‘can’! Practise strong and weak forms. As a general rule, the weak form is used at the beginning and in the middle of statements/questions and the strong form at the end. Thus you can drill: ‘Can you play tennis?’ ‘Yes I can.’ as follows: ‘Can (weak form, show squashed can) you (point to the class) play tennis (mime tennis). Yes (thumbs up gesture) I (point to yourself) can (strong form, show uncrushed can). Invent your own sign language!
This uses the first letter of each word of a sentence as an aid to memory. Write example sentences on the board, eg for practising Present Perfect questions: ‘Have you ever played ice hockey? Have you ever ridden a horse?’ Now rub out everything except the first letter of each word, leaving: ‘H y e p i h?’ ‘H y e r a h?’ Point to the letters one at a time to elicit the questions. Now write some more sequences of first letters, for example: ‘H y e b t L? ‘H y e m a A?’ Point to the sequences and ask students to guess what they represent, in this case: ‘Have you ever been to London?’ and ‘Have you ever met an American?’ When they have found the meanings, you can make changes, for example rubbing out the ‘A’ and substituting ‘E’: ‘H y e m a E?’ (Have you met an Englishman? /K Korean, /I Italian etc). Change the verbs too, and let the students guess the new sentences eg ‘H y e s t a A?’ (Have you ever spoken to an American?)
Throw a tennis ball to a student, with an instruction eg ‘throw the ball to me, roll the ball, bounce the ball to me, pass me the ball, return it to me’ etc. Tell the student to repeat the instruction and return it in the way described. Then let students drill in pairs or groups with one ball per group. Then you can do some transformation drills, such as:
Past tense
T ‘Throw the ball to me’
S (After throwing the ball) ‘I threw the ball to you.’
Present continuous
T ‘Roll the ball’
S (While rolling the ball) ‘I’m rolling the ball’
Present perfect
T ‘Throw it back’
S (after throwing the ball) ‘I’ve just thrown it back.’
Future
T ‘Give it back.’
S (before giving it back) ‘I’m going to give it back.’
Here is a fun way to finish a lesson at the end of the morning or day. Ten minutes before the end, write on the board ‘There’s only (ten minutes) until we go home’. Drill this a few times and then change the time ‘There’s only (nine minutes and thirty seconds/twenty five seconds/twenty seconds etc) until we go home.’ Elicit this a few more times but encourage the students to reduce the time: ‘nine minutes, fifteen seconds’ etc. Then write some other phrases: ‘We go home in (eight minutes and twenty seconds)’. ‘In another (six minutes and forty seconds) we’ll be able to leave’. ‘(Four minutes and ten seconds) more and it’ll be lunch time!’ Again, drill these but encourage the students to look at their watches for accurate times.
Finally, when you get to the last sixty seconds get the class to count down from 60 so that the bell rings on zero!
I believe that there is a lot of potential for motivation and enjoyment in drilling, both for students and teachers alike. The key seems to be to avoid straightforward repetition, by adding an element of challenge and interest. I hope these activities will encourage teachers to look for more innovations to make drilling fun.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
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